Security Research Center Policy

In today’s world we have become more and more connected to Internet services, software, and hardware devices.

We share our information with our banks, medical institutions, and employers. We share our information with smartphones, smart TVs, smart watches, and other “smart things” in our homes, which usually retain our information in the remote databases outside our control.
These technologies are deeply integrated into our lives and, in many cases, we have become dependent on them, making us vulnerable when the technology fails or our information is not properly protected.

Our research

We conduct security research to locate any data exposures in the databases of various companies, organisations, and institutions.

Typically we use the Shodan search engine to locate unprotected Internet-connected devices. This search engine is publicly accessible, and allows researchers to identify devices and databases that are connected to the open Internet without any password protection or other technological barriers to safeguard the data stored in them. We do not crack passwords or authentication processes or use any other hacking tricks.

Once we discover a publicly exposed database, we report our findings according to the following guidelines:

When appropriate, we provide details of the data exposure to the company, organisation, or institution that failed to protect itself.

We do not modify the data we found.

We allow entities time to remedy the data exposure prior to making any details available publicly that would otherwise cause further risk.

We do not transfer any data to any third parties.

Why do we do this?

Here, in the Security Research Center, we do our best to:

Help businesses build better security by identifying data leaks, and

Raise public awareness to the dangers related to data breaches and security risks in the connected world.

Why Do I See so Much Online Advertising?

No matter how annoying it may seem, advertising is just a way for any company to inform its customers about a product or a service

Why Do I See so Much Online Advertising?

Before we jump into discussion, let’s remember the history of ads.

01

May 3, 1978. First SPAM

The first known online advertisment appeared as a spam. The spam email was sent to 400 recipients on May 3, 1978, by Gary Thuerk, also known as the father of spam. The email contained an invitation to demonstration of the Decsystem-20 product by the Digital company.

02

More than 15 years later...

...a banner ad appeared, specifically, in 1993 on Global Network Navigator, the first commercial website that was selling banner ads.

03

Only 2 years later...

...advertisers like MasterCard and Zima were paying GNN from $110 to $11,000 per week for ad spots.

04

The same year...

...the Yahoo web directory transformed into a commercial business and did the first keyword-based advertisement.

05

Since then...

...online advertising mechanism has been launched and now it’s still evolving. Now we know online advertising in some more variants, such as popup advertising and advertising in social media.

In a perfect world, there would be more open-source content and less advertising of any kind, but the true reality is that the number of ads that we see today will only increase in the future.

And here is why...

There are millions of websites worldwide, and most of them work by selling the advertising traffic to publishers.

Moreover, such giants as Google and Yahoo are involved in this process; in their turn, they buy traffic and then resell it.

At the end of this global wrestling process advertisement comes in your browser as popup ads, banners, or in any other shape and form.

So what customers do against the ads that are seeping out of everywhere?

They install ad blockers and don’t even guess that their favorite online publication, website, or news resource survives thanks to the sale of the advertisement. According to Page Fair annual report, now there are 198 million active adblock users around the world. It means that 198 million users will not see online advertising that is prepaid by a publisher. This could lead to losses for both seller (your favourite online publication) and publisher.

What's next?

No matter how annoying it may seem, advertising is just a way for any company to inform its customers about a product or a service.

In that way MacKeeper™ does not differ from other companies that use online advertising. Though, it is one of the largest buyers of ad traffic that targets the Mac OS operating system. It buys traffic from multiple advertising companies like everyone else.

If you still experience problems with seeing pop-up ads, MacKeeper™ has provided the corresponding options below.